The United States will require all air travelers from China to test negative for COVID-19 in advance from next week, the government said Wednesday, as cases surge in the Asian country after it eased measures to curb the novel coronavirus.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, beginning Jan. 5, all airline passengers aged 2 or older will need a negative result within two days before departure from China as well as Hong Kong and Macau to the United States.

In deciding the policy, the CDC cited a "lack of adequate and transparent epidemiological and viral genomic sequence data being reported from (China)."

Washington's move came after Japan, Italy and Taiwan took similar measures against travelers from China.

Since earlier this month, China has significantly eased its strict "zero-COVID" measures and stopped counting the exact number of patients. The drastic change has caused a surge in virus cases across the country.